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BN: We'll get back to that at the end, but before we get there, I want to ask you a little more about what happened after that in your life. So Gidra ends in, I think, is it April of '74? Something like that. And then you had been kind of out of school for a while by then, right?

DA: I'm leaving school now.

BN: You'd mentioned you were working at a liquor store part time, or was that earlier?

DA: That was during college.

BN: Oh, that's during college. So how were you paying the bills during that last Gidra period?

DA: Bookkeeping. I was part of, yeah, some of the stuff I learned at UCLA economics and whatnot taught me about finances. So I was able to pay, was keeping books for five small businesses, including my mom's little cosmetic business. So that was able to pay the bills. And I was also in a band making a few bucks a week. I was kind of hobnobbing around, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was also making money running the sound for the band, Hiroshima band, so it was kind of a nice few years of just kind of exploration. Met my first wife then.

BN: Was she in the music field, too, or did you meet in some other way?

DA: No, I met her through... I met her through some friends that I had played music with.

BN: Okay.

DA: And he's still playing, Scott Nagatani. Scott Nagatani had... my first wife, they were all part of this group that came out of Dorsey. So I'm not sure how or when I met her, but I did. Ended up coaching her basketball team, yeah, and then started dating her. Can't remember what happened first. Anyways, yeah, so I bipped around, I was playing in bands, keeping people's books, and then got married when I turned thirty. And still kind of bipping around, and then my wife gets pregnant, and I'm thinking, oh, maybe I got to start thinking more seriously about a career. So I kept the bookkeeping thing still going, and then at some point I decided that wasn't enough. So I started looking into insurance, and my younger brother Dean had already been working with my dad. So I didn't want to crowd him, so my dad had this other partnership that was just selling life insurance and group benefits, group health insurance, and so I decided to do that instead. And so I started working, doing that kind of stuff, and got to know the business. And I think I mentioned later on, after two or three years, I find out that my dad's partner is embezzling money. So that was a shock to all of us, so obviously he had to get let go. And so that's when I ended up taking everything over, and there was nobody to take it over, and I was just two years into the business.

BN: So about what year was that?

DA: That was about '74. No, '72, '71, '72... no, no. What am I thinking?

BN: About a decade later.

DA: 1980, '82, somewhere in there. It just kind of started from there. And then, let's see, where do I want to go to next? Anyways, I did that from '80 to the next ten, twelve years, and then my brother, there was a situation that happened at the agency where he had to leave. So then my dad, I ended up, I had to help him. He was ready to retire back then, by that time. This is in, like, 1990, '92, something like that. So that's when I started running the Property Casualty agency. I did that 'til we merged with FIA in 2000, and then came back to J-Town in 2007, 2008.

BN: Been here ever since.

DA: Been here ever since.

BN: So during the post-Gidra period, did you stay involved with things like the redress movement or the whole Little Tokyo redevelopment protests or that type of thing?

DA: Only on a fringe level mostly. Mainly because I was busy raising twins and getting divorced. [Laughs] And then raising twins, and it kept me kind of busy.

BN: So the twins are with the first wife?

DA: First wife.

BN: And then you had two more subsequent?

DA: Yes. And yeah, that's later, that's when I met Chris and got married and had two more kids. So got married to her in '85, and been married to her since.

BN: Let's see. Did you continue with the music thing?

DA: The music thing I kept going for a little while, but when I started working to do this group thing, it was harder and harder for me to just drop it and take off with the band. Because I wasn't playing hardly anymore, right? But I was doing sound for the band, at least. But when I couldn't break away, then they ended up finding other people, and after a while it just became, couldn't do it anymore. But I certainly kept in touch with them.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.